Cancer and Garlic

One in three persons is predicted to get cancer in their lifetime! That is an astounding, as well as disturbing statistic. Cancer research has been on-going for over half a century with seemingly fewer definitive or effective treatments or solutions produced than theories and studies offered of the disease itself. Some in the more cynical camps may surmise that more interest exists in NOT finding a cure because cancer is so “lucrative.”

Disease of Modern Societies

One fact that can be relied on is that this disease was virtually unknown in primitive societies. In other words, cancer as the staggering statistical scourge that we know today, is a disease of modern societies: Processed foods, pesticides and other hazardous environmental chemicals, preservatives, hydrogenated oils, excessive calories, refined sugar, white flour, chemical food additives and artificial colorants, were all unheard of in the Amazon forest or villages of Borneo.

Besides cancer-causing substances in our environment, certainly modern eating habits are a major reason for the spiking incidence of this terrible disease. The American Cancer Society has recently been encouraging Americans to eat more fruits and vegetables as a way to protect themselves against cancer. These television and magazine ads, in a hit or miss attempt to “educate” the public about nutrition, underscores how uninformed we tend to be with regard to the relationship between disease and nutrition, and specifically, NUTRITION and CANCER.

Nutrition and Cancer

Indeed, can we truly say that we always eat with nutrition in mind? Do we even know what nutrition means? Or what it takes to keep us healthy and disease-free? Do we even remember that nutrition (eating) was once a matter of life and death; to keep us disease-free? Too often these days, we even see food as “entertainment,” or “treats,” even competition-related, what with Twinkies or hot-dog eating contests and the like, not to forget food fights! But food is for our nutrition, to save us from disease and to keep us alive. It must be eaten on a regular basis with whole nutrition in mind. To do otherwise, skip meals, eat haphazardly, and without balance, risks inviting mal-nutrition, which invites disease. Even cancer!

There IS hope, though!! Maintaining a healthy body, a healthy immune system can keep us, for the most part, disease free! Experiments have shown that cancer will not grow in healthy individuals. Our bodies dispose of cancerous cells when our resistance to disease is high. Maintaining a consistently high resistance to disease, a consistently strong immune system, will keep us safe from contracting cancer. Though each person is an individual, with individual nutritional needs (even for specific vitamins and minerals), it is generally safe to say that eating a balanced diet will keep us in good health, given that we observe other health rules, including exercise and sufficient rest, not smoking and only moderate drinking of alcohol.

Protection Against Cancer

Sulfur-rich foods, such as cabbage, leeks, cauliflower, broccoli, onions and garlic have been found to protect against cancer. In Italy, a study of diets found that eating a diet rich in fruits, including citrus, Vitamins C, E. and beta carotene, as well as raw vegetables, olive oil and garlic offered the most protection against stomach cancer. Prostate cancer can also be prevented and slowed by eating garlic, chives and onions on a regular basis. Colon cancer, a commonly diagnosed cancer in the U.S., (with almost 140,000 cases reported in 2006, and approximately 54,000 deaths the same year), can be mostly prevented: scientists estimate that up to 90 percent of colon cancers can be prevented through a change in diet, with a greater consumption of fruit and vegetables. In one study by the University of Minnesota in 1994, garlic was found to be preeminent among fruits and other vegetables in its protective power against colorectal cancer.

It has been estimated that in the past two decades, more American women have died of breast cancer than war fatalities from the Korean and Vietnam Wars, as well as World War I and II combined. These stats are staggering to contemplate. The good news is research into garlic against cancer has shown positive results. In laboratory tests with mice, garlic stabilized and actually shrunk tumors. In mice injected with garlic extracts, tumor growth decreased by 30-50%. In mice that were given dietary garlic, the growths decreased by 10-25%. Researchers suggest that adding garlic to a cancer patient’s regular treatment could be effective and beneficial. Aged Garlic Extract (Kyolic Garlic) is proving to be very effective against breast cancer in laboratory tests and is being prescribed to breast cancer patients.

Garlic Strengthens The Immune System

Garlic strengthens and stimulates the immune system’s response to disease: it will fight the threat from malignant cells and tumorous growth from getting a foothold. Plus, garlic’s sulfur compounds apparently have a powerful effect on the liver’s detoxification enzymes; it is these enzymes with which the liver breaks down and eliminates toxins. Garlic thus helps the liver to remove toxic substances and harmful chemicals from the body; this action can actually keep cells from becoming cancerous.

To summarize, garlic can help us fight cancer! Preventing cancer, however, is probably the most important tactic against the disease: A healthy lifestyle and diet are recommended, with plenty of vegetables and fruit, (especially, organic, to diminish the potentially cancer-causing toxins from pesticides). Avoiding alcohol, smoking, excessive sugars and fats, and chemical-laden processed foods is a must. And, adding GARLIC to your food on a REGULAR BASIS will certainly do no less than help protect you against a whole host of deadly cancers.

My daughter is undergoing chemo treatments now for breast cancer. She has ulcerative colitis so certain foods irritate her bowel.
What and how can she incorporate garlic into her diet. Are there certain recipes you could recommend ?
Thank You

The information contained in these articles and the publication thereof do not constitute practice of medicine nor are they intended as medical advice. They do not replace the advice of your physician. All materials on this site are solely given as informational reading. Neither the authors or publishers take responsibility for any possible consequences of any procedures, treatments or dietary changes or applications as a result of any of the information provided. Before undertaking any course of treatment, the reader should consult their doctor or other health care provider.